Yeesh, that was pretty awful. Away end view at Loftus Road is pretty great anyway... Will have to rewatch that 2nd goal as looked like a rocket to me (from the other side of the pitch!) that I wouldn't judge Pears too harshly on, but don't think anyone covered themselves in glory on that one. Also to double-check if Hyam had any culpability on either goal, as I thought he was solid tonight (one terrible pass aside). Surprised no commentary on Gueye and Travis having a bizarrely animated fight about taking the penalty. Glad Dolan buried it, but almost seemed like Travis was winding Gueye up rather than being a leader. Strange. Seemed to wake Gueye up for a few minutes after, but he was quite poor after some solid performances of late. Cantwell was terrible. If he's not carrying a knock (certainly looked like it!), he should be ashamed of that performance (and if he's hurt, why is JE bringing him on as an earlyish sub??). Weimann completely anonymous. Has had his moments this year, but some games sure do pass him by... To try to be kind to Hedges, he certainly does his defensive duties, but just offers nothing with the ball. Did some really good work winning the ball a couple times and then immediately gave it away. Think Brittain needs a rest... heck, probably the whole squad. Get those new bodies into the lineup fast. Ha, I'd actually say Forshaw did nothing wrong in his brief minutes. Good for him. Random views from a couple neutrals who joined me, fwiw: not impressed with Gueye, one thought it looked like Buckley has talent (I was sure to tell him how he's unfortunately flattered to deceive for 2-3 years now... tonight, I thought he was awful in the 1st half but ok in the 2nd). Dolan hit-and-miss. One, who follows a L2 club, was laughing at how amazed he was at how well we and QPR passed it around, reminding him that he usually watches pretty awful football haha

Was just reviewing the Athletic article on the saga: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5252239/2024/02/06/blackburn-rovers-duncan-mcguire-transfer/ (sorry paywall). Not like there's much else to read at the moment... Yup, that's the general reported story. We had agreed on ~£3m + add-ons that could bring the total to £5m (after some early loan offers were rejected, only offered a permanent deal once the Wharton sale was almost done), plus a sell-on for Orlando. McGuire left Orlando's Mexico camp for NYC the morning before deadline day. That's when Venky's informed Waggott, Broughton, and JDT there's no money for the deal (LET also confirmed this). GB apologetically called Orlando saying the deal was off. Orlando tried calling McGuire back, but he left for Manchester. His agent sent McGuire to that Sheffield hotel as a Sheffield Wed deal was looking more likely. Apparently, his agent then called GB asking if they were still interested with the Wharton sale done. GB said they could still only do a loan. Orlando, wanting money upfront to make their own deals, insisted on a sizeable loan fee. Agreed on a £550k loan fee + £5.5m purchase option + £2m add-ons + Orlando sell-on. So, potentially £3m more than the previous agreement, including the add-ons (LET, for their part, said these figures are 'inflated'). Agent still haggling between Blackburn and Sheffield Wed. GB used some data to make the final sell. McGuire and agent went to Blackburn to sign the deal...

As an aside, wasn't the rumour that Mowbray was referring to Marcus Maddison and/or Erhun Oztumer with that comment? In retrospect, it looks like he made the right judgement on those two (particularly in regard to the character of the former, yeesh). Or am I misremembering? (Ronan Curtis, maybe? He never made the jump from Pompey, then unfortunately did his ACL...)

What's particularly silly about that excuse is that it essentially admits that we do have a cashflow problem, despite at the same time insisting the owners have no restrictions on sending cash over...

Markanday wasn't impressive last year, but, after excelling for Chesterfield in L2 and now off to a great start with Leyton Orient in L1, we should obviously at least take up the option on his contract and reassess in the summer. Just had a look and he's already at 1,971 L1/L2 minutes this year (+62min in cups) vs only 765 min last year (+290min in cups). His loans have turned out exactly as you'd hope for a young player in need of starts, so surely the hope is he'll be much better on his return. If not, we can probably at least flog him off for a few hundred k based on his loan performances. Similar to recent debate about Morton (not that I expect him to return...), I get that some weren't fond of him - he certainly had his inconsistencies/growing pains during his Rovers loan, but, on a macro level, 30 starts+10 subs on a 7th place team for a 20-year-old who JDT put in a very challenging MF role is pretty impressive - but surely he's since improved as a 22-year-old who made 35 starts+4 subs for a 7th place (ha) Hull last year (whose fans seem to rate him) and now often on Liverpool's bench (if somewhat stuck in purgatory at the moment).

Yeah, I was about upper-middle in the away end and had a great view of: a) Buckley's rocket - maybe it looked closer than it actually was, but I was surprised that didn't make the 2min highlights! He's had some poor long shots here and there (yesterday an example), but he does have that 'in his locker'; see Birmingham a couple years ago (took some hunting, oddly struggling to find it on YouTube, but it's on Rovers' FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/1Rovers/videos/buckos-rocket/2274552452710855/ Part of the problem with Buckley is having to scour a fair bit to find those bits of magic from him...) b) it was clearly a deflection on the free kick (but couldn't tell it was Beck's head!)

We could be getting close to challenging this bench from 2 Dec 2023: https://www.skysports.com/football/sheffield-wednesday-vs-blackburn-rovers/teams/484926: Hilton, Gamble, Markanday, Garrett, Atcheson, Telalovic, Bloxham, Montgomery, Duru. (Leonard aside - not to pick on him - at least had a semblance of a starting XI) (JDT obviously deserves some criticism, but he had almost zero depth to work with in the latter stages...)

Maybe O'Riordan won't turn out (fwiw, a Cambridge supporter told me he thought COR has talent, but a few major mistakes early on, amid Cambridge plummeting, sealed his fate for that loan...), but I can't fault signing a 20 yo CB with a £500k release clause who already had 79 games of pro experience (in L1/L2/Scottish Champ). (Whether spending £500k on COR that window meant we chose not to strengthen in another position, and therefore got that much closer to relegation, is a fair counter!) You can get in trouble if relying on bringing L1 'stars' into the Championship, but there is merit in scouring L1/L2 for young (and affordable...) talent. Dack the obvious hit, Pickering's been good overall, mixed feelings on Rothwell but can't deny he was a good pick, Bell a mixed bag (a PL-er!), Edun a miss, Ennis a bad miss (if somewhat salvaged). (not counting Szmodics/Brittain given they were in the Championship the season before, but they highlight tracking relegated carcasses!)

If Forshaw was brought in to replace a McFadzean-like case, where the outgoing player had barely played at all, and bring strong dressing room qualities (to be fair to him, perhaps he is a good in the room), maybe there's some sense having him on the bench instead of some youngster whose probably nowhere near first-term football yet. But Baker started seven games for us, roughly 1/3 of the games he was around for, and came on as a sub 6 of the 14 times he was on the bench. (And Mark Robins has had him play 90min in both games since his recall). It's a clear downgrade for a squad player, not a backup, which matters a hell of a lot when 1-2 of your midfield options go down.

My tally of our current loans by level: Scottish Prem: Vale (Motherwell) - recently returned from a long injury with a couple subs. League One (3): O'Riordan (Cambridge) - Odd he wasn't immediately recalled like Garrett given he hasn't even made the bench in recent games. Perhaps lining up another loan first. League Two (4): Batty (Accrington), Markanday (Chesterfield) National League (5): Gamble (Fylde), Goddard (Ebbsfleet), Olson (Altrincham) National League North (6): Powell (Chorley) Northern Premier League (7): Eastham (Ashton), Edmondson (Macclesfield) (possible this loan has now ended after being extend to 'January'; will see if he's in tonight's line-up) Northern Premier League Div One (8): Honor (Atherton Collieries) Cyprus First Division: Saadi (Ethnikos Achna) Atcheson was on the bench for 6th tier Marine on 1 Jan but his loan was due to end that day. Had made 13 starts + 1 sub for them. Montgomery's loan there also due to end on 1 Jan, but he hasn't been in their lineup for over a month. Not as if he was totally frozen out though as he did manage 17 starts on his loan there. (edit: Atcheson and Montgomery both in the lineup for the U21s PL Cup match tonight v Bamber Bridge) Loans that were also originally due to end in January were Mullarkey-Matthews at 7th tier Bamber Bridge (seems he only made 4 apps there, and hasn't shown up there since Sept) and Harrison Wood at Scottish 3rd tier Annan (5 league apps + 1 cup app, but hasn't shown up there since Oct - edit: Wood also in the lineup for the U21s tonight)

I hereby vow that I will stand up in defence of Pears the next time he has a howler/bad game.

lol, every Dolan touch has been either 1/10 or 10/10.

Hmm, I was under the impression the exact fee/terms are disclosed if the tribunal needs to make the final decision, but perhaps not as the exact terms of the Elliott case were merely confirmed by Liverpool/well-covered by the media, not directly published by the PFCC. In contrast, seems the exact terms of the Mahoney compensation were publicised by the PFCC: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11743/11375683/bournemouth-ordered-to-pay-blackburn-425000-for-connor-mahoney-transfer, which may be a somewhat closer comparable for Finneran in terms of stature, although Mahoney was 20 and at 21 appearances... Mahoney compensation ended up being £425k + £100k for every 10 first team appearances up to £500k + 20% of any sell-on profits + £250k if he got an England cap. Appearances fees + England cap didn't hit, of course (Mahoney now plying his trade in League 2), but going by the reported £1.1m fee for his following sale to Millwall, that suggests we got £425k + 20% * (£1.1m - £425k) = £560k for Mahoney in the end.

Thanks again, @KentExile, we all owe you a pint/coffee! Randomly met a Cambridge supporter who said he quite liked O'Riordan when he started, but the team was in free fall to start the year and a number of key mistakes made him an easy cut. Now on a 3-game win streak, so hard to see him getting back in the lineup soon... they have a couple cup games next week, so perhaps he'll at least get some game time for those. This article from last week: https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/sport/boss-backs-o-riordan-to-take-his-next-opportunity-9388487/ (newsletter-walled, I accessed it by disabling javascript) suggests Monk hasn't completely iced him out, or at least he's still being complimentary about him in public. On the multitude of low non-league loans, I've also been curious about them, but most are only 1-month loans where they're getting a handful of games against 'men', which is perhaps a helpful change of scenery compared to u-18/u-21 football, and usually relatively local, so I wonder if they're still training with/under the watchful eye of Academy staff and probably still able to live at home? Have to assume some are players who probably aren't up to snuff anyway and/or have agents/parents impatiently pushing for loans. (Jackson, if you're reading this, perhaps a question to pose to the Academy staff to get their take!)

Yes, and cheers to @KentExile for putting in the tracking legwork! Sometimes loans get covered in the Academy thread, but not as relevant for loans like Garrett, Markanday, O'Riordan, and Vale, plus maybe Batty (who got his first start for Accrington in an EFL Trophy game, which they lost 4-1...) Generally happy with the loans this past window. Maybe would've liked to see Markanday get a L1 move, but he needs some senior game-time in any case. Jackson reported the other day that there is a January recall clause for Garrett. I wonder if Markanday has one too, more for if we could get him a League One loan if he does dominate League Two... Sounds like Markanday will tear up L2, and it was only a matter of time for Garrett to grab a starting spot with Bristol. Saw a couple Cambridge supporter posts blaming O'Riordan for 3-4 goals already. Had a glance myself at the replays and definitely at fault for a couple, but others less clearcut to me. May partly be some venting after a poor start for them. Saw one Cambridge supporter saying O'Riordan obviously has some ability, but has had a few key mistakes. Hopefully they keep playing him so he can iron that out...

As many are saying, it's with an asterisk, but hard to be too upset with that window in the circumstances. I wasn't expecting us to spend £30m+, but it would've been nice if there was one young 'statement' signing. Stansfield was a good example as, even if that wasn't realistic in the end (especially given what Birimingham paid for him, yowza), we should have had the money for a Brereton-like £5-6m signing. I don't have specific issue with the Weimann, Baker, Batth, McFadz signings, but imagine replacing one of those pricey-ish one-year deals with a ~22 year-old capable of starting today and grow in value? I don't have anyone specific in mind, but surely the scouts could've dug up something if given the green light for a ~£5m signing? That has financial risk, but given how much we've netted in the last 1-2 years... I suppose you could argue Cantwell fits that bill, but, even trying to be a bit aggressive about his wage costs below (I might not be aggressive enough!), it's not that much of a financial outlay (hence a good bet by the recruitment team!), and his chunky wage is spread over three years. I've updated my estimate of wages + transfer incomings/outgoings below. Going back to Jan 2024 given Wharton's sale is the biggest factor, the budget restrictions seemed to really hit mid-summer 2023, and going further back makes accounting for wage impacts trickier... Tried estimating 'wages+' (various bonuses, NI, etc) by multiplying the implied annual wage by 1.3, which will obviously have error bars. Didn't apply that uplift to loans. Nitpicks welcome! (except for the youth loans I probably shouldn't have bothered with haha) Also tallied the 'wages+' impact by year, showing that we have added maybe a few million to the wage bill compared to last year, but that reverts to a minimal net impact for 2025-26 once loans/one-year deals expire. It's a trickier sum to interpret, and perhaps there were additional costs to offloading the likes of Ennis/Wahlstedt, but thought I'd try to estimate the dynamic of all these one-year deals.

Whatever restrictions/fuckery he's having to deal with, one of my assumptions/conclusions from this window is that John Park is not a fool (and maybe some credit to Gestede/Owen?). (edit: should add biggest TBD is what happens GK-wise...)

Tronstad... I love you.

Threw this together as I was generally curious about the implied wages/transfer sums for our dealings since the start of 2024 (could extend back to last summer and add in Kaminski, Phillips, Edun etc but this gets shakier the further you go back as would need to make a lot more assumptions about wages, including new contracts/escalators on existing deals, how to net off Ennis/Wahlstedt/Telelovic, etc and the apparent major budget issues seemed to truly arise mid-summer 2023) Obviously making heroic assumptions about wages/transfer fees, with wage costs usually under-estimated due to bonuses/NI+pensions/signing/agent fees etc, and I made some arbitrary calls on how much to bother counting loans, youth player costs, etc., so feel free to nitpick! Mainly curious about the scale of transfer fees paid and wage commitments vs wages off the books (some cases may have included partly paying off contracts, so may overstate the savings there) and transfer fees received. So, ~£36m net transfer income (fair bit subject to Wharton being sold again. I've assumed we've secured another £2m on top of the £18m initial fee) and maybe a net reduction of £1m in forward-looking wage 'commitments' (trickier to interpret, particularly with respect to offloading players with long-term deals left). Probably some truth in Waggott's claim that our wages have gone up since last year after bringing in a few vets on (one year!) decent wages deals, but obviously net transfer fees are the elephant in the room! edit: updated as had an error in my first spreadsheet!

In 16 senior pro 'cup' games with Rovers and across his loans at Halifax, Lincoln, and Motherwell, Jack Vale has 7 goals. No, I won't be taking any further questions on this matter.

Looking at the other end of the table, and perhaps more relevant to our current circumstances, a couple good loans can be what keeps a middling team from getting relegated...

Kinda inherent to sports forums rhetoric, but I do wonder how much of the 'fights' on this forum would be easily resolved/less antagonistic if we were just chatting over pints. Just the other day a friend (rightly) called me out for a dumb opinion about goalkeepers where if I had read it as a transcript I might've been irked, but we were just trading opinions over pints, so no harm no foul! I'm not at all comfortable with Pears as our starter and definitely need to bring in another keeper to challenge/usurp him (presumably that's the plan with Leo gone), but he's had enough good spells for us that I think some posts are over the top. Ultimately strikes me as a below-average Championship keeper or maybe L1 level, but hardly a pub footballer. Yet I'm hardly a 'fan' of his, so happy to let some posters shit on him without comment haha Similarly, a lot of the debates about Gally seemed to stem from some posters reacting to him being described like a 0 goals in 47 appearances Chris Brown, when he was fairly 'consistently' a 1 in 5 striker across his career with us. Not good enough scoring-wise, but hardly deserves to be in that company! (I suppose you could then get into debates about bang-for-buck, but that's a different argument!)

Similar to the Wharton instalments, that tidbit about the Raya sell-on instalments is emblematic of how this club needs to operate at the moment. Due to whatever tax avoidance fuckery Venky's have been up to, we've got a cashflow problem, not a profit/loss problem... From an FFP/accounts POV, that £5m of profit on Raya is booked today, and will be part of the 2024/25 accounts. As is common in football, you can also borrow against that incoming today if you wanted to spend some of it now... I see Waggott's reported at the fan forum that he expects a profit of £2m for 2023/24 (can probably work out a rough wage bill/operating loss from that, but fairly busy at the moment...). Combine that with our £20.9m loss in 2022/23, conservatively assume £2m/year of FFP-excluded expenditure, and we could theoretically take on a loss of ~£26m this year (potentially rising to over £30m with the Raya sell-on, plus other sales (Gally, Szmodics...), though looks like we are at least spending a bit now). Now, I obviously wouldn't recommend spending that much in one year from a medium-term general sustainability/FFP compliance POV, but simply highlighting that, whatever the manner of the Wharton sale, it did give us plenty of FFP headroom, yet we're probably essentially wasting a year of the applicable 3-year FFP window due to Venky's. What's the point of unfathomably rich, quasi-oligarch owners if they can't even send cash over anymore? Some signings are a relief, but the only thing from stopping us from spending a fair bit more is Venky's court case/sudden disinterest.

Just double-checked if Grant Hanley's out of contract..

Athletic (/NYT now) article breaking down his Bosnia cameo: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5536821/2024/06/05/adam-wharton-england-euro-2024/ One snippet is the deal could be worth up to £22m. A pedantic pushback as I fully agree he was sold too early due to Venky's-induced cashflow issues, and we probably could've pushed that to £25m+ if we had hung on until the summer... but it sells it a bit short when people keep saying £18m (about 20% short 🙂). I think we can be reasonably confident he'll be hitting plenty of add-ons (the article mentions one add-on is £250k once he hits 10 competitive international appearances, which seems a bit low for that kind of add-on, but perhaps a sign that most of the add-ons are less 'ambitious'/readily achievable). Also, that £22m number probably doesn't include sell-on fees (it's possible there's a 'firm' cap, can only speculate!), where you could imagine an additional decent chunk coming our way. (To reiterate, none of the above points make me 'happy' and I'm very sad/angry that Wharton left so soon under the apparent circumstances. Like others are reporting, I'm now getting kudos in the pub for having pumped Wharton's tires a while back, but it's a mix of pride/sadness...) Similarly, the Raya deal will probably have net us ~£9m once his Arsenal transfer is confirmed this summer, which doesn't look too shabby overall. Biggest failure of the Raya sale was then deciding that Walton was good enough to take on the no. 1 role... similar to essentially swapping Kaminski for Wahlstedt being a disaster this past season (I'm very cautiously/quietly optimistic that there's still a keeper in Wahlstedt...). Mowbray of course deserves some criticism for apparently losing faith in Raya for whatever reason...